


Take Me To Church

by HawthorneWhisperer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Priest Bellamy, War, a lot of people are dead in this, both canon-dead and non-canon dead, sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 08:49:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4094635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawthorneWhisperer/pseuds/HawthorneWhisperer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy Blake made his choice two years ago, but a new friend makes him question if the church is really the place he’s meant to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Bellamy almost didn’t go running that day.

It was hot–-hotter than hell, and only 7am in early May—and sticky, the sort of day that made him grateful that the dorm had window air conditioners, the sort of day that made him want to draw the shades and read in the dark, cool solitude.  But after a moment of dithering he forced himself out the door and into his usual four mile run down the river path, around the strip mall, and back up the other side of the river.   He usually stopped a quarter mile from the dorms to stretch on a shady patch of pavement at a nearby park, and that was when he saw her.

She was sweaty and flushed, her face the color of a tomato.  Her teal sports bra was stained darker in spots and wisps of her blonde hair stuck in limp streaks to her cheek.  She smiled politely and scooted over so he would have space to stretch, surreptitiously checking him out.  Before, Bellamy would have smirked and let his eyes drag over her.  Five years ago he would have done just that and probably more, but that was back then.  Before.  Not now.  Now, he returned her polite smile and stretched his hamstrings, his eyes trained on the pavement.

That was the whole point, after all.  He wasn’t going to be that guy anymore.

He saw her more often from then on—not every day, but most days she was out running at the same time.  Sometimes she would be done by the time he started stretching, giving him a jerk of her chin in acknowledgment as she headed toward the parking lot.  Other days he would see her in front of him, her long pony tail swaying with her gait as she kept up a rather punishing pace.  (Not for nothing, but Bellamy was in pretty good shape  _and_  several inches taller than her, but she was consistently just too far ahead for him to catch.  Not that he tried, or anything).  He started noticing things about her too—no wedding ring, for one thing, and no tan line or divet that would indicate a ring she just didn’t feel like wearing it when she ran.  She had a nasty looking scar down the inside of her forearm, long healed but still there, shiny and pink.  She wore earbuds most of the time and sometimes when she stretched her eyes would take on a far away look and she would hastily skip the song, like it caused her physical pain.  Bellamy didn’t mean to notice these things, of course.  He wasn’t  _studying_  her, or anything, they were just simply things that somehow wormed their way into his brain and stayed.

She was the one that spoke first, after a few weeks of friendly nods and waves.  Bellamy was stretching out his hamstrings and grimacing when she furrowed her brow and tipped her chin toward him.  “It shouldn’t hurt that much,” she said bluntly.  “If it does, either you’re doing something wrong or you pulled something and you should ease up.”

Bellamy straightened as she pulled her earbuds out.  “And what do you suggest I do differently, princess?” The words were out of his mouth before he had a second to check his tone—it was too teasing, too flirty.  Too much five-years-ago.  He would have to do better.

“For one thing, ease into the stretch and stop when it starts hurting,” she said, seemingly unaffected by his flirtation.  “For another, maybe take a break from running every once and awhile.”  Bellamy raised his eyebrows and held her gaze, a little too pleased with himself when her cheeks flushed infinitessimally darker.  “What?  I see you here all the time.  I get the impression you don’t really take a day off.”

“And why should I take your advice?” he asked, and this time he managed to keep Old-Bellamy out of his voice.

“Because I’m a doctor.  Clarke, by the way,” she said forthrightly and stuck out her hand for him to shake.

Bellamy reached across the cool concrete and took her hand in his.  “Bellamy,” he replied.  “And thanks for the tip.”  She ducked her chin and smiled, and Old-Bellamy, Before-Bellamy, would have enjoyed that smile and everything it implied, but instead he felt nothing. Or at least that’s what he told himself.

They didn’t have any more conversations until the Thursday morning Bellamy rounded a curve nearly a mile from their stretching point and found Clarke sitting on the side of the trail, glaring at her ankle.  He slowed to a stop next to her and panted a little in the thick, humid air.  “You okay?” he asked and she nodded, then shook her head.

“I’m fine—it’s my stupid ankle.  I rolled it, that’s all.”

Bellamy frowned.  “Can you walk?”

“Yeah, I’ll just be slow.  I’m fine, really.”

“Here,” he said, and stuck out his hand to help her up.  It was dumb—she clearly didn’t want help, but here he was, offering it anyway.  She smiled softly and took his outstretched hand, pulling herself up but keeping her left foot from bearing any weight.  He walked with her, mostly because she didn’t tell him to leave.  It was slow going, however, and eventually she made a frustrated noise and stopped.

“Just go—this is taking forever,” she said angrily.

Bellamy sized her up and made a decision.  “How about a piggy back ride?” he offered.  After all, that had been his primary form of exercise when Octavia was between the ages of six and twelve.  “I know I’m all sweaty, but you’re a doctor—you’ve dealt with grosser things.”

Clarke laughed and nodded.  “Fine.  But first I need a last name.”

“Blake,” he said with a smile.

“Griffin,” she responded as he crouched down and she hopped up.

It should have been awkward, by any stretch of the imagination.  They were hardly more than strangers and she was pressed against his (bare) back in nothing but a sports bra and shorts, but instead it was easy.  He asked where she worked (the ER a few miles away) and she asked what he did for a living (grad student he said, not entirely untruthfully) and before he knew it they made it to the parking lot.  She directed him to her car with her lips a little too close to his ear and again, five years ago, he would have been asking for her number, but that wasn’t possible anymore. He set her next to her car and straightened, his thighs screaming a little after the unexpected workout.  Clarke leaned against the side and smiled.  “So, Bellamy Blake—can I buy you a cup of coffee sometime?  As a thank you for being my knight in kind of sweaty armor?”

He felt a little flicker of his old self way down deep inside as he looked in her bright blue eyes, but it quickly extinguished.   _Honesty, Blake,_  he heard Father Kane’s voice echo in his head.   _You can’t do this if you aren’t honest with yourself._  “Yeah, but—in the interest of full disclosure…there’s something you should know.” He actually saw her walls go up and her eyes shutter so he hastened to explain.  “I’m a grad student, but there’s something more.  I’m, um, a novitiate.”

“A what?”

“A novitiate.  I’m in the seminary—I’m going to be a priest.  I’ll be taking my vows in a few months.”

Clarke stared at him for a second and then her expression cleared.  “That’s all?  Jesus, the way you were acting I thought you were going to admit that you had a secret family or were a convicted murderer or something.  Oh, shit, I just took the Lord’s name in vain, didn’t I?  Dammit, sorry.”  She bit her lip and Bellamy smiled—really smiled, for the first time in a long time.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Clarke smiled broadly.  “Do I have to call you “Father” now?”

“Not yet, princess,” he said, bordering dangerously close to flirting.

“Still, coffee?”

Against his better judgment, Bellamy nodded.   _Priests are allowed to have friends, after all._

She unlocked her car and slid in, still favoring her leg.  “There’s a Starbucks on 13th—does Tuesday at two work?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” he said and closed her door for her.  She pulled out of the parking lot and he watched her go, wondering if he’d gotten in over his head.

One coffee date became two, which turned into a standing running date and coffee once a week.  There was something about Clarke that kept drawing Bellamy in, a kinship he hadn’t felt in years.  She understood him and he understood her, although he did wonder what darkness lurked behind her eyes.  It was a darkness that haunted him too, but his was more easily explainable—two tours in the Middle East tended to do that to a person.  But Clarke wasn’t a soldier, and the pain seemed too deep and too personal to be just a casualty of her work.  But he didn’t press her.  It wasn’t his place.

Bellamy got so used to running with Clarke that the days he ran without her he felt lopsided, like a part of his body was missing.  Even though they kept their music on and rarely talked there was a companionship to running together, jostling elbows and panting for breath whenever Clarke challenged him to race the last hundred yards (he usually won, but just barely).

They exchanged phone numbers, but Bellamy didn’t use hers for much more than confirming coffee until the night it came back.

He was used to the nightmares now.  In fact, most of the time he could shrug them off—except this one.  It changed shape each time but the fear and guilt remained the same, threatening to suffocate him.  The dead were all there—his mother, Connor, Myles, Miller, even little Charlotte.  Sometimes they accused him of murdering them, sometimes they simply stood by, silent and watchful but no less accusatory.  Bellamy woke up in a cold sweat.  His clock blinked at him: 3:17.  He sat up and turned on the lights, trying to get himself under control.  He tried praying, but the words wouldn’t come.  Even just reciting his favorite ( _Hail Mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee_ ) didn’t calm him and the words echoed hollowly in his head.

Bellamy sat on the edge of his bed and contemplated his options.  Kane wouldn’t be awake but he would gladly get up if Bellamy knocked—but Bellamy wasn’t sure Kane’s brand of stern almost-compassion would help.  He glanced at his phone sitting on his nightstand.   _Ugh, I’m working nights all week.  Which means fighting to stay awake when there’s nothing going on and then battling adrenaline when I get home_ , Clarke had moaned that day at coffee.

It was a long shot, but what the hell.  Clarke picked up on the third ring.  “Bellamy?  Everything okay?”  The concern in her voice made his throat close and for a second he considered hanging up.  “Bellamy?”

“Hey,” he said hoarsely.  He cleared his throat and tried again.  “Hey.”  It was stronger this time, less broken-sounding.  “Got a minute?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty dead here—just give me a second, okay?”  There was a muffled sound and then he could hear the PA system paging a doctor.  “Jackson, I’m gonna take ten,” she called.  Everything got much quieter then.  “Okay, we’re good.  What’s up?”  Bellamy didn’t even know where to begin, opening and then closing his mouth wordlessly.  Clarke sighed.  “Nightmares?”

“How did you know?”

“I’ve seen your tattoos.  Doesn’t take a genius to figure out you served.”  Clarke left the rest off—that she saw a darkness in him that mirrored her own.  He wondered again who she lost.

“Oh.”  He didn’t know how to start—didn’t know how to admit he was weak and terrified.  He didn’t want to burden her, but she was the one he needed right now.

“Talking won’t help, I’m guessing?”  Bellamy grunted, feeling weak.  He couldn’t even talk about it.  Images flashed in his mind, unbidden.  Charlotte, her face black and twisted.  Connor, blown to bits.  Myles, drowning in a pool of his own blood.  He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the neverending stream of his failures.  Clarke seemed to measure his silence.  “Anyway, tonight’s been pretty typical,” she said and launched into a recitation of her evening.  It was mundane—mostly drunks needing stitches and a handful of addicts looking for painkillers—but oddly enough, it helped.  At some point she must have opened her dinner, because there was a smacking sound between her words.  She didn’t seem expect him to respond with anything more than grunts and she kept her tone studiously light.  It helped more than he could possibly say.  

Clarke broke off mid-story and quickly conferenced with someone in the hospital.  “Okay, we’ve got some actual action—you gonna be okay?”

“Yeah.  And—thanks, Clarke,” he said.

“Anytime,” she replied and he could hear the smile in her voice.  Somehow, she’d given him a measure of peace that he hadn’t felt in a long time, and he slept the rest of the night without interruption.

**

Clarke fought fatigue as she drove home, her eyelids feeling like lead.  She’d already told Bellamy at coffee that she wouldn’t make their running date, because her first shift back on nights usually wrecked her and today was no different.  Still, she considered stopping by to see him and make sure he was doing okay.

She wasn’t sure how she knew exactly why he was calling last night, but the second her phone lit up with his name she just…knew.  They never talked about things like that, but somehow she’d known.  Clarke was no stranger to nightmares herself, and the looming terror that pulled her back to waking was so familiar it was almost comforting sometimes.  Between her father’s face, wasted from months of desperate cancer treatments, and Finn’s eyes, glassy and scared as his body slowly pumped out his lifesblood against her hands, Clarke rarely went more than a week without one.

She almost turned and pulled into the parking lot near their stretching spot but changed her mind at the last minute.  If Bellamy was anything like her–and more than ever, she suspected he was–he wouldn’t want a reminder of his weakness.  So she drove home, showered, and collapsed into bed, hoping that today, at least, she would be able to sleep.

 

 


	2. Chapter Two

The summer began in earnest, with the heat and humidity of a southern June bearing down on them all.  They had slipped into an easy friendship, something Bellamy hadn’t had since Miller.  He had even gone over to her house the week before with a stack of ribs to grill and they sat together in her backyard, eating ribs and drinking beer in a companionable silence.  She gave him a sense of peace he thought he could only find in the church anymore–a feeling of being understood, of being forgiven even though she didn’t know his sins.  But through it all he kept his walls carefully in place, even though the whole point of the church was that he wouldn’t need them anymore.  With Clarke he needed to be careful, because it would be too easy to become someone he didn’t want to be anymore.  

Clarke missed a few of their running days–usually due to working a night shift or simply being too tired–but she always texted if she wouldn’t be there.  So when she didn’t show one Wednesday without texting, something seemed off.  After giving her ten minutes, Bellamy started on their usual path but then changed his mind and doubled back.  Clarke’s house was two miles from the park, so he could just run past and make sure everything was okay and still hit his usual distance.  She probably just slept through her alarm, he reasoned, but his gut still twisted uneasily.  His sense of dread grew when he reached her small bungalow and no one answered the door.

Bellamy mentally ran through her schedule–did he get mixed up and she was working a seven to seven today?  He frowned and rang the doorbell again.   _No, she had the next five days off–that’s what she said on Monday. Maybe something else came up and she just forgot to text._   _It’s not like you’re the only person in her life,_  his brain argued.  But other than a mother with whom she didn’t get along and a friend named Wells who lived in North Carolina now, Clarke hadn’t really mentioned anyone else in her life.  He forced himself to finish his circle back to the dormitory, despite the nagging feeling that something was profoundly wrong.

That feeling stayed with him while he showered and changed in the dorms, and kept interrupting his focus as he tried to refresh his memory on the assigned reading for his 2pm seminar.   _Something is wrong_ , his gut kept insisting.  Clarke hadn’t responded to his texts–one sent when she didn’t show for the run, and two more after he finished.  That wasn’t like her.  Not at all.

He looked at the clock on his nightstand–11:13– and made a decision.  He had just enough time to bike to her place, double check that she was okay, and make it back to campus with an hour to spare before his afternoon seminar. Chances were good she was just sleeping, or had errands to run, or something else normal and not-suspicious, but he would worry until he heard from her or saw her with his own two eyes.

Bellamy propped his bike against her front porch and knocked.  And waited.  And knocked again.  He rang the bell.  Waited.  Rang the bell again.

Nothing.  The house was dark, the windows shut tight.  Her car sat in the carport, the hood cold.  Against his better judgment Bellamy hopped the low fence separating her front yard from the narrow strip of grass that led alongside her house to the shady backyard.

A noise made him pause–just above his head was a small, frosted window, cracked open to let out the steam from a shower.  He heard the water running and for a second, he felt ashamed for panicking because she was in the shower, but then he heard it again.

A choked sound, almost like a sob.  Bellamy wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him, if he was so convinced something was wrong that he was imagining that noise.  But then he heard it again, followed by something that could only be described as keening.

“Clarke?” he yelled, standing on his tiptoes.  “You okay?”  The noises stopped for a second and then started again, louder than before.  “Clarke, I’m going to find a key and come in, okay?” he called, shoving down his fear at what he would find.

It took several minutes of frantic searching but he found her spare key, hidden behind a beam in her toolshed.  Bellamy let himself in through the back door and made his way through the kitchen and to the hallway that separated her bedroom from the rest of the house.  The shower was still running.  Bellamy knocked.  “Clarke?  It’s Bellamy.  Are you–are you okay?”  He could still hear her sobs over the rush of water, but she didn’t answer.  “I’m coming in,” he said, louder, and cracked the door open.

Still no response.

The bathroom was humid but not steamy.  Bellamy grabbed a towel.  “Clarke?  I’m going to open the curtain now, okay?” he asked as gently as he could.  He steeled himself for what he would find, but nothing could have prepared him for Clarke, her arms wrapped around her knees, her breasts pressed flat against her thighs, sobbing.  The water was freezing and he could see goosebumps all over her pale flesh.  He shut off the water and dropped the towel across her shoulders as he crouched down beside the tub.  “Hey, hey, hey,” he said softly, using a voice he hadn’t used since Octavia was sixteen and dealing with her first breakup.  He rubbed her back in what he hoped were soothing circles.  “What’s wrong, princess?”  Clarke turned her head to look at him but there was no recognition in her eyes, no spark that told him she would be okay.

There was only grief and emptiness.  He should have been frightened, but there was a strange kinship to see something he’d felt so deeply mirrored on her  face.

“I killed him,” she rasped.  “A year ago. Today.  I watched him die and there was nothing I could do.”

Bellamy absorbed the force of her words and nodded.  “Right now, I need you to get out of the tub because you’re freezing.  Can you do that?” he coaxed.

Clarke’s face remained blank.  “I  _killed_  him,” she repeated, her voice breaking.  She shivered.

Bellamy readjusted the towel so it covered as much of her as possible.  “I’m going to pick you up, okay?”

Clarke hid her face in her knees and nodded once.  Gingerly he lifted her and carried her to her bedroom where he set her on the edge of her bed.  “Can you dry off?” he asked as he dug through her large oak dresser for some clean clothes.  Clarke nodded mutely and he found a tank top, a pair of Georgetown sweatpants, and some clean underwear.  He set the clothing next to her and cradled her face in his hands while she huddled in the towel.  “I need you to get dressed, Clarke.  I’m going to stand outside your bedroom but I’m not leaving, okay?  Can you do that for me?”  Once more she nodded and he left, shutting the door behind him.

A few minutes later Clarke opened the door, dressed.  Her hair dripped down her back and her face was a mask of devastation.  Bellamy snatched the towel from the floor and squeezed out the excess water from her hair while Clarke sat motionless on the bed.  Her stillness unnerved him–he wanted her to rage, to throw things.  Anything to prove that she was still Clarke inside instead of this motionless shell.

Wordlessly she climbed towards the pillows and under the covers.  Bellamy sat next to her and rubbed her arm.  Grief was exhausting–he of all people knew that.  “Do you want to take a nap?”  She nodded and he stood to go.  

“Stay,” she commanded in a voice hoarse from crying, and moved over a little.  He sat next to her, rubbing her back, until her breathing evened out and finally, she slept.

When he was sure she was asleep he stood and pulled out his phone.   _A friend needs me_ , he typed to Kane.   _Won’t be in class today._   He wandered her house almost aimlessly until he heard her phone ring.  It was sitting in the kitchen next to a half eaten bowl of cereal, as if she’d tried to force herself to behave normally today and failed miserably.  

Bellamy could relate to that–after he lost Miller ( _lost_ , such an inadequate word) he spent two solid months without leaving his apartment, pretending that it was normal to do nothing but drink beer and play video games until you passed out, your eyes bleary and heavy.  It was Octavia who intervened then, dragging him to church one Sunday like he had done to her countless times when they were kids and finally putting him on a path to redemption.

Bellamy looked at her caller ID and saw a man about their age with dark skin and a bright smile.   _Wells Jaha_ , it read, and when it stopped ringing Bellamy saw that Wells had called five times that morning.

Before he could second guess himself, he tapped the Call Back button.  Wells answered halfway through the first ring.  “Clarke?  Oh thank god, I’ve been so worried–”

“It’s not Clarke,” Bellamy corrected.  “I’m Bellamy.  I’m, um, a friend.”

Wells fell silent for a minute.  “The priest?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Bellamy replied.   _Technically I’m not a priest yet_  seemed stupid in light of things.  

“Is Clarke okay?”  The concern in Wells’ voice ate at Bellamy’s stomach lining.   _You do not get to be the only one who cares about her_ , he reprimanded himself.

“No, not really,” he admitted.  “That’s why I’m calling.  She’s in pretty rough shape and I can stay as long as she needs me, but we haven’t been friends for very long and–”

“No, no, no, I get it.  Thanks for calling.  Has her mom stopped by?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, that’s good at least.  I’m probably five hours away and I have closing arguments in one of my cases tomorrow at nine, so I’m stuck here at least until then, and then there’s jury deliberations but that should go quickly because he’s  _definitely_  guilty but you didn’t hear that from me.”  Wells sighed heavily.  “I can be there probably by some time tomorrow afternoon, but if you have shit to do and don’t think she should be alone, my dad can come and stay with her.  She gets along with him better than her mom, at least. He’s a preacher, like you. ”

“I can stay until you get here,” Bellamy heard himself say.  “But mind giving me a rundown on what happened?”

“Has she told you anything about him?”

“All she’s said since I got here was that she killed him.”

The line went quiet, like Wells was deliberating on something.  “She dated this guy Finn for, oh, I don’t know, almost a year, and then she found out he had a fiance off in some other town.”

“Damn,” Bellamy said under his breath.  He shouldn’t hate a complete stranger but suddenly, he did.

“Yeah, and then like a month later he got into hit by a car and showed up in her ER.  Everyone else was busy and he died on her table.  I’m not sure what happened, exactly, but she pretty much shut down after that.  It was like when her dad died all over again, and–well, things were pretty rough for her then too.”

“Damn,” Bellamy repeated.

“I know.  So listen, I should get going if I’m going to take a few days off and arrange for some people to cover for me–you sure you’ve got this?  My dad lives near y’all, or there’s an anesthesiologist she works with, Monty–”

“It’s fine.  I–I sort of know what she’s going through, and my schedule is flexible.”

“Well, thanks man.  I’ll call her phone when I head out tomorrow, and if you need backup just give me a call and my dad will be right over, okay?”

“Okay,” Bellamy confirmed and hung up.  He pulled a book off her built-in bookshelf and settled on the couch to read until she woke up.

“Bellamy?” Clarke’s voice was faint through her closed door, but he was by her side in an instant.  

“I’m here,” he reassured her.  “I talked to Wells–he’s coming up tomorrow to stay with you for a few days.”

Clarke nodded and moved over, pushing herself up to rest against her headboard.  Bellamy sat next to her, carefully keeping his legs on top of the covers.  “Sorry about earlier.  I–I’m not sure what that was,” Clarke told her lap.

“It’s okay.  Grief is hard and we don’t always react the way we should,” he told her, echoing Kane’s words to him back when he was fighting his way out of a pit of blame, recrimination, and overwhelming grief.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”  Clarke rested her head on his shoulder and after a second of hesitation Bellamy lifted his arm and drew her against his chest.  “Aren’t you going to ask me to pray with you?”

Bellamy shrugged, jostling her a little.  “It doesn’t help everyone.  I will if you want me to, though.”

Clarke didn’t reply.  “Who did you lose?” she asked instead as she nestled into his arms.  It had been years since he’d held someone like this–three years, to be exact– since he’d felt the rise and fall of someone breathing against him.  

Bellamy took a deep breath and began.  He started with the easy ones, with Connor and Myles, dead in a war zone because of Bellamy’s decisions.  They were only easy because while they were his men–and that meant it was never easy–they died quickly, fighting for a cause they at least believed in.  (Bellamy was never really sure why they were there, fighting people who hadn’t done anything to them, but he never let his men suspect a thing.  Doubt was fatal in war.)  

Then he moved onto the harder ones–to Murphy, dead from friendly fire.  To Charlotte, the terrified nineteen year old who looked so much younger.  She’d shot Murphy in the chaos of a firefight, only realizing her mistake later.  Bellamy explained how angry he’d been with Charlotte, how he shouted that it was  _all her fault_  and  _Murphy’s dead because of you_ , how he put his own fears and inadequacies on a woman who was hardly more than a girl.  He told Clarke how Charlotte had been put in the brig and how he went to visit and apologize, to tell her he knew it was a mistake.  And he told her how Charlotte had already hung herself by the time he arrived–dead because she couldn’t handle the burden of Bellamy’s guilt on top of her own.

And then he told her about Miller, about how he lost his best friend, his second in command, his confidant, to an IED.  How the only reason Miller was on that patrol was because Bellamy put him there, and how when Bellamy returned from that tour he almost didn’t survive.  That he didn’t want to, not after everything he’d done.

He finished by telling her about his original sin, his mother who OD’ed two weeks after he took Octavia away from her.  No one ever knew if her OD was intentional or not, but Bellamy bore the burden of taking away the only thing his mother had to live for all the same.  They sat in silence for a long while.

“Why did you decide to become a priest?”  Clarke twisted in his arms to look at him.  “Because no offense, but I can’t exactly see you taking confession and saying Sunday Mass.”

Bellamy smiled a little at that, because there was a note of sarcasm in her voice that gave him hope she’d crawl out of this on her own.  “Well, first of all, I’m a Jesuit, not a parish priest.  So yeah, I won’t exactly be saying Sunday mass so much as teaching Latin to ninth graders,” he explained.  “The church…O and I didn’t have a lot of stability growing up.  But Mom, when she was clean, she always took us to church.  When I was little we went every Sunday, and no matter where we were living mass was always the same, you know?  Same words, same stories, and maybe different people, but it was the same.  So when things got bad with her and I needed to get O out of the house, we went to church.  It was safe, you know?  Predictable.  After Mom died I stopped completely, but after my last tour things got…bad.  And O started dragging me to church every Sunday, just like I did for her, and…it helped.”  

He left out the shell of a person he had been before O intervened, numbing himself to the pain with a combination of rye liquor and women who didn’t think twice when he flashed a smile and offered to bring them home.  He was still ashamed of that person he’d been.  He may not have treated those women poorly but he hadn’t treated them well either, and that wasn’t who he wanted to be anymore.

Clarke stayed quiet for so long he started to wonder if she’d fallen asleep, but then she spoke.  “Did Wells tell you about Finn?”

“He did,” Bellamy confirmed.

“Did he also tell you Finn was the first man I ever really loved, and then he broke my heart and then barely a month later he was  _dead_  so I don’t even get to hate him for it?”

Bellamy tightened his arms around Clarke.  “No, he didn’t.”

“Well, he did.  And when I found out about his fiance it hurt so much I couldn’t breathe, and then–” she broke off and sniffled, wiping at her cheeks.  “I was working an overnight and Jackson was busy with some drunk frat boy who fell and broke his leg in like six different places when we got a call about an accident.  Drunk driver versus a pedestrian.  I knew it would be bad, but–I never thought it would be him.”  Bellamy pressed a kiss to the top of her head, too worried about her to care about the implications that action carried.  He just wanted to let her know he was there.

Clarke took a shuddering breath and plowed on.  “He was dying.  I saw that the second they brought him in.  He’d lost too much blood, and his internal injuries…there wasn’t anything anyone could have done.  I know that for sure, because there was an inquest after his death and I had to answer questions about whether or not I let the man I loved die as some sort of revenge,” she said bitterly.  “And he–he was awake through all of it.  He was awake and terrified and there wasn’t anything I could do.”  She broke off with a sob that Bellamy felt in his bones.  “So I told him I loved him and then he died, and I–everything changed with that, I guess.  I couldn’t hate him and I couldn’t love him because he’s gone.”

They sat together with the memories of their dead as the sun dragged shadows across the cream colored carpet of her bedroom.  Clarke eventually fell asleep again, and when she woke Bellamy coaxed her into eating some frozen pizza he’d dug out of her freezer.

He was in the process of pulling blankets from her linen closet for the couch when she materialized by his side.  “What are you doing?” she asked, frowning, and then held out her hand to him.

This was a line he was about to cross, he was sure of it.  He might not have taken any vows yet and she might not want anything but someone to sleep next to, but this was dangerous.   _She_  was dangerous.

But Bellamy had never been very good at playing things safe, so he took her hand and let her pull him to her bed.  And when she curled onto her side just inches from him he rolled over and secured his arm around her waist, tucking her back into his chest.  He buried his face in her hair, still sweet-smelling from her shower, and he allowed himself a moment to breathe her in.  It had been two years since he’d been with a woman but it had been even longer since this, the simple comfort of another person pressed against his body.  Clarke was warm and soft and she fit perfectly into his arms and Bellamy decided he would let himself be weak, just this once.

He thought she’d fallen asleep when she rolled over, her face so close to his he had a hard time focusing his eyes.  “I’ve been hiding ever since Finn died,” she told him.  “I haven’t–I won’t let anyone in.”

Bellamy tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear, because when you’re already playing with fire, a little more kindling doesn’t matter.  “Then you should stop hiding,” he said softly.

Clarke studied him for a moment.  “You’re hiding too, aren’t you?”  she whispered.  Bellamy’s throat closed up and he tried to summon the walls he’d spent so long building, the walls that not only protected him but kept everyone around him safe from him.  They didn’t seem like enough anymore, not with her.  Clarke twisted away from him and snuggled back into his embrace.  Just before he fell asleep he thought he heard her whisper something.

It sounded almost like “You should stop hiding too.”

Wells called just before noon the next morning to let Bellamy know he would be there by late afternoon. Clarke slept for most of the day, although Bellamy wasn’t sure she slept much the night before.  When he woke up that morning she wasn’t in the bed with him but instead curled in an armchair across the room, sketching.  She snapped the sketchbook closed the moment she saw he was awake and agreed to try and eat some breakfast, but an hour after her eyes started drooping while they watched mindless morning talk shows and Bellamy sent her back to bed.

She woke up for good just before Wells arrived and Bellamy watched as Wells let himself in and Clarke melted into his arms.   _You do not get to be jealous, not of this_ he reminded himself, but the old Bellamy rose up inside of him and he had to clench his fists for a moment.  Three years ago he probably would have snarled at Wells and put up a territorial display but that wasn’t who he was anymore, at least on the outside.

Instead he shook Wells’ hand. “Sometimes I envy you preachers–my dad couldn’t have been anything else, even if he tried.  I wish I had a calling like that,” Wells observed genially as Bellamy tried not to wince.  He wished he felt like that too, quite frankly.  But while the church was the only thing that made him feel calm and whole, he didn’t really feel the calling the rest of his fellow seminarians felt.

Well, the church was only thing that helped before  _her_ , but he didn’t get to want that anymore.  

Bellamy was out on the porch, unlocking his bike when Clarke stepped out, barefoot.  She blinked at the bright afternoon sun and hesitated before wrapping her arms around his waist.  “Thanks,” she mumbled into his chest.

Bellamy paused before returning her hug but in the end he was still weak and he buried his face in the crook of her neck one last time.  “Take care of yourself,” he whispered in her ear and then left before his walls could crumble any further.

**

_He’s just a friend.  He can’t be anything more than that,_  Clarke told herself as she watched Bellamy pedal away.  She’d known about the limitations of their friendship since that day he gave her a piggyback ride.   _He cares, because it’s basically his job to care.  He’s just a friend._

There was something dangerous about Bellamy, something that scared her.  Not because of him, but because of the possibility of him.  She’d shut down after Finn, but Bellamy was like fire–warm and necessary, but a threat nonetheless, and the closer she drew to him to warm her frozen heart the more dangerous it became.  Loving Finn had been an inferno from start to finish, from their exhilarating first date to the moment she watched him die in front of her, and Clarke had lived in fear of burning ever since.  And then last week Bellamy let out a bark of laughter that changed his whole face and she’d felt warm to her very toes for one heart stopping second.  But that warmth was just one breath away from being burned.

_He’s just a friend._

But the lie felt hollow and Wells’ presence only emphasized that.  Clarke didn’t feel the need to burrow into him when he hugged her, and when he went to set up a bed on her couch she didn’t protest.  Wells did not remind her of a wildfire, consuming and destroying everything it touched even as it left the chance for renewal in its wake, and Wells was not the crackle of a hearth on a cold, damp winter morning.

Because she loved Wells, but he wasn’t who she wanted.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're about to start earning that M rating in earnest, folks.

Bellamy was eating with Kane on Sunday evening when his phone buzzed with a text from Clarke.   _< Tomorrow, 7am?> _was all it said and he didn’t even realize he was smiling until Kane commented on it.

“Good news?” Kane asked, taking a sip of water.

“What?  Oh, uh, yeah.  My friend from earlier in the week–she’s feeling better, is all.”

“She?” Kane arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah.  We’re running partners, but…well, this week was the anniversary of when she lost her ex-boyfriend.  She was in rough shape for a little bit.”

“I’m glad she’s doing better.”  Kane leaned back from the table and surveyed Bellamy.  “Is there anything we need to talk about?”

“No,” Bellamy said a little too quickly.  “She’s a friend.  We’re allowed female friends, right?”

“We are.  There’s no harm in that.  I just wanted to be sure.  Temptation can spring up on us sometimes, so being vigilant is…wise.”

“I understand,” Bellamy replied, keeping his eyes averted.  That wasn’t a conversation he felt like having.  He didn’t want to look at his friendship with Clarke too closely, afraid of what he would find.

The next morning, Clarke met him as if nothing was amiss.  She seemed like herself, but now Bellamy knew the reason for the occasional flickers of darkness in her usually bright eyes.  

For a time, it seemed like they’d skirted between Scylla and Charybdis and had settled back into an easy friendship, but then a week later Bellamy woke in a cold sweat that felt like blood he would never wash off and he called Clarke without a second thought.

“You okay?” she asked without preamble, her voice rasping slightly.

“Just a bad dream,” he admitted.

“Okay–do you need me to talk for a bit?” she asked, and Bellamy realized what was missing–there was no background noise.  No yelling patients, no muffled PA system, no rustle of papers.  

“Were you sleeping? I thought you were on nights this week,” he asked.  

“I traded with Jackson for tonight–don’t worry about it,” she said and Bellamy felt a surge of guilt run through him, but even more of him was pleased that she would answer his phone call in the middle of the night without hesitation.  “Anyway, did I ever tell you about the time I got kicked out of Wells’ soccer game?”

Bellamy smiled to himself as Clarke launched into the story which apparently involved an angry fifteen year old Clarke, a possibly-blind ref, and a two week long grounding by her parents.  She talked until he felt calm enough to fall asleep and rang off with a cheerful, “don’t worry about it,” that filled his chest with gratitude. He decided that neither she nor Kane needed to know he fell back asleep imagining her wrapped in his arms.

The following morning Clarke once again pretended it never happened and for most of the run, Bellamy was content to pretend along with her.  But something stopped him as she left their stretching area to head for her car and he jogged after her.  “Wait–Clarke, hold up,” he called and she turned around, her keys in her hands.  “Thanks,” he said.  “For last night.”  He stretched his fingers out and tucked a sweaty wisp of hair behind her ear and skimmed his thumb across her cheekbone before he knew what he was doing.

She smiled softly.  “Anytime,” she said and then she ducked into her car before he could do anything else stupid, like kiss her.

Things between them shifted.

Bellamy tried to pretend otherwise.  He had to–he didn’t have any other choice.  He gave up the right to want her, or intimacy, or a family, or children, the moment he decided to enter the church.  He did his best to keep his hands to himself and found himself refusing to return her smiles sometimes, even though the flicker of pain in her eyes when he met a friendly smile with a blank nod made him want to curl into a ball and promise to never do that again.

His dreams didn’t help either.  

Well, he couldn’t really call them dreams because they happened when he was awake.  

Daydreams, maybe.

Fine.  Fantasies.

He thought he’d worked past this–handling your  _natural urges_  was one of the first things they addressed when you entered the seminary.  He’d made it almost two years with hardly a problem, but now it was an almost daily occurrence.

Bellamy woke up hard every day.  Well, that wasn’t new.  That, he could handle.  What he couldn’t handle was where his brain would go every morning, imagining Clarke, soft and warm next to him.  Clarke, nuzzling into his shoulder.

Clarke, sitting on her kitchen counter, pressing her forehead against his as he drove into her over and over again, surrounded by her wet heat, kissing him when he came.

It was driving him insane.  More than once he found himself in the dorm showers, stroking himself hard and fast while he pretended his hands were Clarke’s, deft and strong and sure as they pulled him over the edge.

He kept waiting for the guilt to come.

It never did.

**

Clarke tossed and turned, flipping her pillow over to the cool side and kicking the covers off.  Every time she closed her eyes she saw him, his brown eyes flashing with something she couldn’t decipher.

Bellamy, smiling and elbowing her out of the way when she challenged him to race the last hundred yards.

Bellamy, snorting with laughter in the bright morning sunshine while they stretched.

Bellamy, his lips parted and his eyes dark, gently cupping her cheek in his hand the morning after his nightmare.

Bellamy, refusing to smile when she made a (admittedly flirty) joke while they stretched.

Clarke flipped her pillow around again and buried her face in it.  They weren’t going anywhere–they couldn’t.  Friends was the best they could hope for, but a  _friend_  shouldn’t set your blood on fire with a single glance.

So much had changed since she met him.  After Finn, she’d resigned herself to a life alone.  She watched her mother lose her father and then watched the man she’d maybe-loved-and-maybe-hated die in her arms, and then Clarke was done.  She didn’t have any room left in her heart.  There was Wells and there was Monty, but she wasn’t letting anyone else in.  Bellamy was an aberration.  But still, she couldn’t stop herself.

She was even drawing again.  She’d stopped after Finn because every time she sat down with her sketchbook all she could see was his eyes, wide and empty, and his blood, dark on her hands.  But that morning after her breakdown she’d woken up with a need to pull out her sketchbook and capture the way Bellamy’s forehead relaxed when he slept and the way his lips seemed slack but kissable.

She still couldn’t picture him as a priest.  Some days she almost could see it, on days when he was melancholy and quiet.  Those days she could see him as a fifteenth century monk, bent over a book in a scriptorium, working and praying in silence.  But most days she couldn’t–he inspired trust, sure, but she couldn’t imagine going to him for confession.

Or maybe she could, and  _that_  was the problem.

Maybe it was the forbidden element.  Maybe it was the challenge, to see if she could break him even though at the same time she wanted nothing more than to protect him.  

Maybe she was just a pervert.

She wondered what it would be like to kneel in one of those dark confessional booths with him looming in front of her and felt her nipples tighten.  She imagined his hand curving around her cheek the way it had that morning near her car.  (Wait, wasn’t the priest in a separate booth?  Clarke’s knowledge of Catholicism was limited mostly to the Sound of Music and Elliot Stabler, but whatever, it was her fantasy.  She could imagine confessional booths however she wanted.)  Clarke dipped her hand down below her waistband to where she was already wet and bit her lip.  She pictured him tangling his fist at the base of her neck and tugging her head back, his eyes soft and dark, his lips curling into an almost-feral smile.  The white rectangle on his collar would stand out in the dim, cramped booth as she ran her fingernails up his inner thighs, the dark hair rasping under her touch.

Clarke slipped a finger inside herself as she imagined taking him in her mouth, a fist wrapped around the base of his cock.  She imagined the weight of him on her tongue, salty and  _him_  as she wrapped her lips around him.  She brought her fingers up to her clit and started drawing tight circles around it, conjuring up what it would be like to pull him deeper and deeper into her mouth and then out, running her tongue along the vein on the underside of his shaft.  She could almost  _hear_  the way he’d groan her name, trying to stay quiet as he braced himself on the elaborately carved walls.

Clarke felt the heat in her stomach start to unspool and she came imagining him spilling into her mouth with a stifled moan.  She wiped her fingers off on her sheets and rolled over again, somehow more frustrated than she was before and convinced that if there was a hell, she was probably headed there.

**

“Need a hand with the dishes?” Bellamy asked, setting his beer down on Clarke’s kitchen counter.  She’d had him over to grill burgers in her backyard and they had sat in sticky plastic lawn chairs with beers, burgers and off-brand chips until the mosquitoes drove them inside.  Bellamy had forgotten what it was like to have these moments with friends–before his last tour he always had Miller, but after he came home and Miller was gone, he was left with Octavia and Lincoln.  No matter how much his sister loved him, her love sometimes tasted of pity.  And it wasn’t like this–carefree and light, with easy laughter and even easier silences.

It was nice to sit outside in the heat of a late summer evening with someone, no pretense between them.  Bellamy didn’t realize how much he’d missed that until just now.

Clarke shooed him out of the kitchen.  “It’s just a couple of plates.  I’ve got it.  Did you want to watch a movie?”

Bellamy knew he should say no.  He should hop on his bike and go back to the dorms, but instead he smiled brightly and suggested  _Skyfall_ , because he knew Clarke’s weakness for James Bond movies.  He situated himself on one side of her couch and she curled up on the other cushion to finish her beer.

Halfway into the movie, Clarke looked over at him, her eyes bright in the reflective light from the TV.  “Would it–never mind,” she said, her eyes darting away from his.

“Need something, princess?” he asked, his voice dangerously close to flirtatious.  _Out of line, Blake_ , he heard Kane’s voice say.

“Could I lean on you?  It was nice–before.”  That was the closest they’d gotten to acknowledging the night he spent here, twined around each other.  He wondered how much she thought about that night.  He wondered if she missed the weight of another person beside you, grounding you, anchoring you to them.

He shouldn’t.  He was already skirting the edge with her and he needed to make sure he didn’t cross any uncrossable lines, so saying no was really the only option.  But her ears were turning pink and a blush stained her cheeks and he didn’t want her to feel embarrassed so he shifted on the couch and draped his arm over the back in an invitation.  Clarke curled into his side almost immediately, and the voice in his head that should tell him to stop seemed curiously muted.  She was warm and soft against him and he let himself enjoy it.

He didn’t even realize his fingers were tangled in her hair until the credits were rolling and she lifted her head from where it was pillowed on his shoulder.  His fingers caught on a snarl and he pulled them away like he’d been scalded.  Her face was just inches from his, her pupils wide and dark.  “You could stay,” she said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

And with three words, a door opened in his mind.  He could tip his head forward and kiss her, carry her to her bedroom and spend the night learning how she tasted and what she sounded like when she fell apart.  He could wake up next to her tomorrow morning and see her sleepy and mussed; watch the slow, easy smile spread across her face when she opened her eyes.

That life was right there–right in front of him.  Inches away.  He wanted it with a force that frightened him.

Bellamy swallowed thickly.  “I shouldn’t.”

“But you could.”

“I can’t,” he breathed back.  “And you know that.  Please–please don’t ask me that again,” he warned and then stood abruptly, dislodging her.  His body seemed cold without Clarke’s warmth, but he couldn’t risk another second in her presence.

Their goodbyes were cold and awkward, and he knew he didn’t imagine the pain in her eyes as he pedaled away into the soft summer night.

**

Clarke found herself getting angry with Bellamy after that–she jerked her arm out of his grasp when he unconsciously reached out to guide her across the street, and she lied and said she had to go see her mother when he asked about their usual coffee date.  He was getting prickly with her too, she’d noticed.  He was fighting his smiles around her and his silences were longer, more irritable.  It was her fault–she never should have asked him that, never should have pushed him to stay.

They even got into a fight one morning.  It started innocently enough–they were in balance that day, their earlier easy rapport having returned in full force.  But Clarke couldn’t help herself and made a joke about him wearing “one of those priest-dresses.”

“Cassock, and we don’t wear those,” he snapped, and then they were off, with Clarke first stammering an apology and then getting angry when he wouldn’t listen.  She yelled at him for expecting the worst of her and he shouted back that she needed let people make decisions for themselves and a hundred other things she never thought they had a problem with but suddenly, they did.  She hissed at him and he snarled back on their tiny patch of concrete where they normally stretched.  Clarke advanced on him until they were just inches apart, her arms crossed under her breasts and his eyes narrowed and then just as suddenly as they started fighting, they stopped.

Clarke’s chest was heaving and so was his, their skin shiny from exertion and flushed with anger.  Their breath mingled as they stood facing each other almost nose to nose, closer than they’d been since the night on her couch.  All it would take to close the distance between them would be rising up on her toes.  One simple movement and she could capture his lips with hers.  One stretch and she could sink her teeth into that lush bottom lip.

One press of her toes into the cement and she could find out if the looks he was giving her lately were real or just the product of an overheated imagination.  Bellamy’s eyes darted to her lips and for one split second, she thought it was going to happen.

Instead he turned on his heel and walked away.

**

Clarke avoided him after their fight.  She had excuses, but Bellamy could see through them.  And truth be told, he didn’t want to see her either.  Seeing her would mean apologizing for losing his temper over a stupid joke and it would mean admitting to himself how close he came to losing control completely.

How close he’d been to crushing her against him and kissing her until the only thing he could remember would be the taste of her lips.

So she avoided him and he avoided her for almost an entire week.  That was when he realized how much he had come to rely on her in just a few months.  He had Kane to talk to, and Octavia, but she’d been distant lately though, preoccupied with work and Lincoln’s new job at the rehab clinic.  He didn’t have anyone else, not anymore.  Running on his own became less of a solace and more like a punishment.  There were a handful of other seminarians in the dorms with him, but none of them were ex- military and he felt separate from them, distant.  Like he was marked.  They had a calling and their choices were clear cut, and none of them seemed to understand that for him, the church wasn’t a calling so much as the only place he felt safe.  They didn’t know what it was like to hate yourself so deeply you couldn’t stand it, and they couldn’t comprehend why it would be better for everyone if you decided to deny who you had been in the hopes that you could eventually be someone better.

After all, none of them had ever had to kill someone. None of them had graves scattered around the country because of their actions, and none of them had fallen into a pit so deep they gave up trying to get out.  They  _wanted_  to be in the church, but Bellamy  _needed_  it.

For a few days, he told himself the distance was good.  That their fight aside, he and Clarke needed a little space from each other.  Clarke had gone from a complete stranger to someone close to his heart in record time and he needed the space to process.  He needed time to pray, if only because those times he sat in silent prayer with his fellow novitiates were some of the only moments his mind felt calm and clear.  (He felt like that with her too, but that wasn’t the point.)

On Wednesday he packed a bag and headed to Octavia and Lincoln’s house so he could watch their needy chocolate lab Trig while they took a long weekend vacation.  It was good to get out of the dorms and into a house, and even better to have a full size bed all to himself in the guest room Octavia steadfastly referred to as Bellamy’s room.

He studied and prayed and took Trig for walks, and in the evening he watched documentaries on his sister’s netflix account with his phone a safe distance away in the bedroom.

But then his resolve cracked.  He texted her on Thursday, pretending nothing was amiss, to ask if she was going to be there for their run the next morning.

She responded six hours later with a simple yes.

At first, it seemed as though she’d decided to let things go.  She acted like nothing was wrong and so Bellamy followed suit, their strides in sync as the ran along the river.  Two miles in Bellamy started to breathe easier because maybe it was possible for things to settle between them.  To go back to before, when they were just running partners and nothing more.

Three miles in they came to a stoplight and Clarke tugged out her earbuds.  “I have a blind date tonight,” she announced over the roar of traffic.

“A date,” Bellamy repeated dully, like he didn’t understand the word.

“Yeah, a date.  Dinner, drinks, maybe more if it goes well.”  She watched him carefully, her eyes hard.

“Who’s the lucky guy?” He asked, trying (and failing) to keep the jealousy out of his voice.   _You can’t be with her.  Ever._   _She deserves to find someone else._

“His name’s Sterling.  One of the nurses, Harper, he’s a friend of hers.  Runs a rock climbing gym or something.”

“Have you even met him?” Bellamy gritted out between clenched teeth.

Clarke shrugged and put her earbuds back in as the light changed.  “That’s why it’s called a blind date.”

For the last mile, Bellamy fought his fury.   _You made your choice two years ago.  No relationships, no family.  No children.  No long, lazy mornings in bed.  No blonde waves spilling across a pillow while you push into her until she screams.  Clarke didn’t agree to that.  You do not get to be jealous._

It didn’t work.

For the second time in a week, Bellamy left without saying another word to her.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am not fucking around with that M rating, folks.

The dishes were done and Trig had had his evening walk, (plus a handful of extra treats despite Octavia’s stern admonition not to spoil him while they were gone).  The only noise was the distant hum of central air as it kicked on as Bellamy sank down onto the couch, fully prepared to distract himself with an evening of historical documentaries.  He selected Ken Burns’  _Dust Bowl_ , partly because it was interesting and partly because it was the only Ken Burns documentary he had ever been able to finish.  ( _No one needs that much information about baseball, Burns.  No one._ )

_7:11pm: She’s probably finished getting ready.  Would Clarke be the type to wear a dress on a first date?_

Bellamy focused on the elderly man on TV, explaining that he still rinsed out glasses before drinking from them because of all the dust.   _None of your business, none of your business, none of your business.  She’s probably wearing heels, but it’s none of your business._

_8:42pm: Dinner is probably over and if it went well they’re moving on to drinks.  She’ll order a gin and tonic and fiddle with the straw if she’s nervous._

He dragged his brain away from images of Clarke, nibbling nervously on a tiny drinks straw and back to the documentary in front of him.   _Rabbit hunting.  They’re talking about rabbit hunting now,_ he reminded himself.

_9:20pm: Second round of drinks._

Bellamy forced down a wave of jealousy at the thought of Clarke, flushed and tipsy, flirting with some square-jawed stranger.   _Owns a rock climbing gym.  Like he’d have anything in common with her anyway.  He probably still plays hacky sack and listens to the Grateful Dead._

At a little after ten, Bellamy gave up completely.  He hadn’t absorbed a single thing from  _Dust Bowl_ aside from the fact that it was very depressing, so he clicked off the TV and decided to just go to bed.  Maybe sleep would stop the neverending parade of Clarke-on-a-date-with-someone-else fantasies that were ricocheting through his brain.  He considered waking up Trig and bribing him to sleep in the guest room instead of at the foot of O and Lincoln’s bed but in the end he climbed between the cool sheets on his own, half angry and half frustrated.

His phone jangled him awake just before midnight.  A familiar surge of panic rushed through him until he saw the name light up.   _Clarke Griffin, MD_.  He’d entered that as a joke one day at coffee as she giggled, but now her name just sent a sinking feeling into his gut.

“Clarke?” he asked roughly.

“I’m outside.”

“What?”  He squinted at the clock, wondering what she meant.  “I’m not at the dorms–I’m staying at O’s tonight.”

“I know.  You told me.  And I’m outside what I’m pretty sure is her house, but it’s almost midnight and I don’t want some crank with a shotgun angry with me because I knocked on the wrong door.  So come let me in, okay?”

Bleary with sleep Bellamy staggered to the front door where he found Clarke standing on the front walk, her phone in hand.   _She is the type to wear a dress on a first date,_  his brain pointed out.  The dress was black and clingy, with a draped neckline that showed off her cleavage and fit tightly around her hips.  It stopped just below the swell of her ass and her legs went on for days.  Dark red heels that added several inches to her height were tapping on the cement walk as she pursed her bright red lips and then pushed past him, into the house.

“How the hell did you know where my sister lived?” he asked and shut the door behind him.  He switched on the lamp next to the couch and it threw a yellow triangle of light across the hardwood floor.

Clarke flapped her hand dismissively.  “You told me she lived in this neighborhood and I recognized your bike out front.  You should really lock that up.”  She tossed her clutch on the kitchen table and crossed her arms, waiting.

“Did you have a nice time on your  _date_?” he asked, unable to keep the venom from his tone.

A sneer curled at the edge of her lip.  “No,” Clarke spat.  “I didn’t.”

“And you’re here because…?”  He folded his arms across his bare chest.  He’d pulled on an old pair of basketball shorts before answering the door but that was it.  Compared to Clarke in full warpaint he felt naked and exposed.

Her eyes lingered on his chest for a moment before snapping up to his face.  “Because it’s your damn fault.  I had a date with a sweet guy and I couldn’t enjoy a single fucking second.  Because of  _you_.”

“What the hell do I have to do with anything?”  His mouth went dry at her insinuation.   _No.  Don’t.  Please.  Don’t go there.  I can’t._

Clarke started walking towards him and he backed up until he bumped into the kitchen table.  “You know what I’m talking about,” she hissed.  He gripped the edge tightly, the wood biting into his palms as he tried to anchor himself.  “Every single thing he did, I compared to you.  Every single story I told him, I compared his reaction to yours.  He’d get up to go to the bathroom and I would wonder which pathetic historical documentary you were watching tonight.”  

“ _Dust Bowl_ ,” he mumbled and she made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a scoff.

She toed off her shoes and stepped close to him, so close he could smell her perfume and see every single freckle on the bridge of her nose.  “He kissed me goodnight and all I could think about was that I wished it was you.”

Bellamy’s knuckles turned white as he squeezed the table.   _Don’t.  You can’t.  You go down this road and there’s no going back.  I’ll destroy you and you’ll destroy me and there will be no one left standing._  “Clarke, please,” he begged.   _Stop.  Be stronger than I am.  Please_.

“I’m sick of this,” she said.  Her pupils were blown wide in the dim light and she licked her lips.  “So I’m here.  Just this once.  Tell me to leave and I’ll go.  Tell me to stay and I’ll stay.”  Bellamy swallowed thickly, the words caught in his throat.   _Leave.  I’ll never deserve you.  Go.  Find someone better_.  They were there, just on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t bring himself to say them.  

Clarke’s eyes bored into him.  “Stop hiding,” she pleaded.

In the end, Bellamy was a coward.  He wasn’t strong enough to turn her away.  He wasn’t brave enough to live the life he’d chosen for himself.  So he met her plea with his lips, cupping her face in his hands and crashing into her.

She inhaled sharply, like she was surprised.  Like she didn’t expect him to take her invitation.  But the moment their lips met it was over.  There was no going back, and there was no way it would just be a kiss. Her lips opened under his and welcomed him in as he brushed his tongue alongside hers.  Her hands crawled up his back and pressed him close to her, her fingers digging into his bare shoulders as he pushed away from the table and walked her back towards the wall.  The kiss was fierce and needy and it set his blood on fire to feel her lips moving against his and hear her soft, breathy moans.

He pushed her roughly against the wall and pinned her with his hips, his fury getting the better of him as he wrapped his fist in her loose waves and bared her neck.  He kissed just under her ear, furious that he was so weak he couldn’t withstand temptation.  He kissed her throat, angry with her for pushing him to his breaking point.  He grazed his teeth along her collarbone and felt her shudder, enraged that his life had gotten so fucked up that even this felt so wrong and so right at the same time.

Bellamy lifted his head and sucked her bottom lip into his mouth as his hand drifted to the hem of her dress and dragged it up, over her hips.  Clarke speared her fingers through his hair and dropped her head back while he trailed kisses down her neck and into the valley between her breasts.  He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her red lace panties and raised an eyebrow, waiting on her nod before he fell to his knees and pulled them down to her ankles.  He supported her as she stepped out of them and he tossed them over his shoulder with a wolfish grin that he hoped hid the way his heart was pounding.

His hands gripped her hips and he used his thumbs to part her folds, the soft blonde curls at the apex of her thighs already damp with want.  He licked a long, slow stripe up her center and was rewarded with a sharp, keening cry that went straight to his groin.  She tasted the way he’d imagined, sweet and musky, and he hesitated for half a second, waiting for the guilt that should come but once again it stayed away, hovering just beyond his peripheral vision.  So he ducked his head and pressed the flat of his tongue against her clit, a steady, even pressure that made her tangle her fingers in his hair and pull sharply.

He moved to her entrance, pressing his tongue inside of her and drawing her arousal out, lapping at her center until he felt her thighs start to tremble and then moved back to her clit, flicking it with his tongue until she  came completely undone, pulsing and moaning above him.

Bellamy wiped his face with the back of his arm in a deliberately feral move and then lifted her into his arms.  Her legs locked around his hips and she kissed him desperately.  Her center was obscenely wet against his lower belly and he started to move away from the kitchen as she blindly groped towards the table.  “Wait,” she mumbled and grabbed her clutch.  “Condoms,” she explained, and the reality of his situation slammed into him.  He hadn’t needed a condom in two years and never expected to use one again.

“I’m clean,” he muttered when her lips left his to feather kisses along his jaw.

“I don’t know if I am, okay?” she breathed back and then she was kissing him again, her tongue caressing his lower lip and then her teeth sinking into it.  He set her down next to the bed and spun her around, his hand finding the zipper hidden underneath her arm.  Bellamy eased it down and pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck as he slid her dress from her shoulders and down her body until it pooled at their feet.  A twist of his fingers that was more muscle memory than conscious thought and her bra released as well and she was bare before him.

His arm banded across her stomach and he pulled her flush against him while he whispered kisses down the column of her throat to her shoulder.  Clarke twisted in his arms and pressed her lips to his sternum as her arms linked behind his neck.  “Are you sure?” she whispered.

A surge of anger ran through him and he practically growled at her.  “I am.  Are you?”

Clarke nodded and rose on her toes to kiss him again and just as quickly as it had arisen, his anger melted away, replaced by an all-consuming need for her.  Her hand snaked under the waistband of his shorts and started stroking him, her fingers twisting and teasing him until he wrenched himself away.  “It’s–it’s been awhile,” he explained and maybe it was a trick of the light, but he thought he saw a flicker of guilt pass behind her eyes.  When he looked again it was gone and she climbed back onto the bed and dug a condom from her bag as he shucked his shorts and boxers.

Bellamy laid on his side next to her and tangled his fingers in her hair once more.  Clarke kissed him back, slow and deep, like she was breathing him in.  Her hand once more fisted at the base of his cock and she nudged him to his back, rolling the condom on in one practiced movement.  She positioned her knees on either side of his hips and balanced her weight on his shoulders as his hands curved around her waist.  “Please,” he whispered, almost like a prayer, and she sank down onto him.

For a moment, Bellamy forgot to think.  He forgot how to breathe and he forgot anything that wasn’t Clarke, warm and wet around him.  She slowly started rotating her hips, but it was all wrong–she was so far from him this way, with her head tossed back and her hair flowing around her shoulders.  Bellamy sat up and wrapped his arm around her back, pressing her breasts against his chest as he thrusted into her.  Clarke hooked her ankles around his back and met him, thrust for thrust, with wet, sloppy kisses across his face and down his jaw.  She rested her forehead in the crook of his neck and moaned brokenly, her fingers drawing circles on her clit while he clenched his jaw.  Bellamy managed to hold back until her walls started fluttering again and then he let go, emptying himself into the condom and kissing her at the same time.

Bellamy pinned his forehead against hers as they fought for breath, needing to look her in the eye and reassure himself this was real–this was happening.  He pulled back, but before he could speak Clarke pressed her fingers to his lips.  “Not tonight,” she pleaded.  “Can we just have tonight?”

He nodded and kissed her one last time before helping her off of him and disposing of the condom.  Clarke curled into him when he rejoined her in the bed and laid her cheek against his heart, still pounding like a drum.  He brought one arm around her and kissed the crown of her head, letting sleep pull him under.

They would figure it out tomorrow.  Together.

**

Clarke woke up and for one second, she didn’t know why she felt so safe.

Then it all came crashing back.

She had shown up at Bellamy’s sister’s house and demanded that he fuck her or let her go.  She made him choose between his life’s calling and some woman he’d only known for a few months.

She was  _awful_.

His arm was draped over her waist, just like the night he’d spent at her place when she was wasted with grief.  His breath tickled her neck, deep and even.  Bellamy was still asleep, which meant she had a chance.

She could leave before he woke up and realized what she’d done.  She could be gone before she saw the dawning realizing cross his face.  

She didn’t have to be there when he shattered her heart because it all honesty, she’d already done that herself.  

Clarke eased her way out from under his arm and froze as he snuffled and rolled to his back.  A few panicked seconds later his eyes were still closed, so she grabbed her bra and dress from the pile of clothes at the foot of the bed and her purse from the nightstand and padded quickly from the room.

She slipped the dress back on and stepped into her shoes in the living room, but her underwear seemed to have disappeared.  She looked under the table, under the couch, everywhere.  She had been half-gone with need when he threw them over his shoulder but they couldn’t have gone far.  Still, her search proved fruitless and every second she stayed was another second closer to Bellamy waking up and throwing her out in disgust so she left without them.

The grey light of early morning leached color from the neatly manicured lawns of the neighborhood as Clarke twisted the key in her ignition and drove away.

She made it three blocks before she broke down.  Horrible, wrenching sobs erupted from her chest because once again, she’d destroyed someone good.

Someone she  _loved_.

Clarke pulled over, folded her arms across the steering wheel and let herself cry.  She was prepared for so many things when she showed up outside the house.  She was prepared for him to be angry.  She was ready for him to sneer, to throw her out, to refuse her.

She was even prepared for him to give in to her, resentment and anger and desire collapsing into one singular purpose.  

But she was not prepared for his tenderness.  She did not anticipate his sweetness or his vulnerability and she never thought he would pin his forehead to hers like that, his eyes so wide and dark.  She thought she knew what she was risking but she didn’t and in the end, it broke her.

She was wrong about Bellamy–he wasn’t fire, he was the ocean.  He was gentle waves, comforting and familiar, luring her farther and farther away from the shore until it was nothing but a speck.  He was a sudden storm, crashing all around her, drowning her.  

He would never forgive her for this and she couldn’t blame him, because she would never forgive herself.

She was lost, but what was worse was she’d lost  _him_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Clarke. Honey. No. (Fun fact: I actually wrote this twist before the season finale aired and I mayyyy have been slightly too pleased with myself for how this twist echoes the end of season two. Also, Bellamy’s feelings about Ken Burns closely mirror my own. Dial it back, Ken. Dial. It. Back.) Thanks to bleedtoloveher for her cheerleading.


	5. Chapter Five

Something was wrong.  For a second, Bellamy wasn’t sure what woke him, but something felt off.  A car starting–that was it.  That was what woke him, and then everything came roaring back.  He turned to his side, but the bed was empty.

She was gone.

She  _left_.

He waited for the guilt and regret to drown him, but instead he just felt numb. He got up and let Trig out the back door, all evidence of Clarke’s presence completely erased.  It was like it had never happened–like she hadn’t shown up and shattered his world with a few words.

Bellamy had seen his growing temptation over Clarke like a siege–he had the walls, she had the trebuchets and engines of war.  He simply had to outlast his temptation and the war would be won and they could go back to being friends.

But that wasn’t it at all, because he had never considered that there was a traitor in his midst.

He never thought his heart would let down his defenses and welcome her in as conqueror.

He should have known he would be his own undoing.

**

_Octavia_

_3:46pm_

_< Family dinner tonight.  6:30.  Non negotiable.>_

Bellamy looked as his phone and sighed.  He should have guessed O would know something was up with him, although he’d done his best to hide it two days earlier when she and Lincoln returned from their trip.  Very little escaped his baby sister.  He had been just going through the motions since he woke up without Clarke, because maybe if he pretended like nothing had changed the world would go back to the way it was.  The pain was so sharp it hurt to breathe, but so constant he almost became immune to it.  

Almost.

He tried praying, but the words wouldn’t come.  He tried to forget the way she sounded and the way she tasted, but every time he closed his eyes the memories would threaten to overwhelm him.  He considered confessing everything to Kane, but saying the words out loud would make what happened that night real, and that would make what happened next real too.  And if that was real, he might give into the pain and never make his way back.  

He showed up at the appointed time, with his usual six pack of microbrews for Lincoln.  The door was open and he let himself in to where O and Lincoln were moving around the kitchen, a stack of ribs on the counter.  Octavia glanced at him over her shoulder, and– _oh, shit_.

She was furious.  

“Hey,” he said hesitantly but she just frowned and grabbed something from a chair.

“Care to explain this?” she snapped, slapping her hand down on the table.  She was holding something small and red. Bellamy looked at her blankly and Octavia snorted.  “There’d better be a good reason I found Trig eating a pair of women’s panties this morning.  I almost killed Lincoln, you know.”

_Oh._

_Shit._

Bellamy sank onto a chair opposite O and scrubbed a hand over his face.  “They’re Clarke’s,” he said, unable to keep the defeat out of his voice.

“Clarke.  The doctor.  And she left her underwear here because…?”  Bellamy reluctantly raised his eyes to meet his sister’s gaze.  “Oh shit, Bell.  Really?”  Her anger deflated, replaced by sadness.  “Have you talked to Father Kane about this?”

Bellamy shook his head.  “I haven’t–I haven’t told anyone.  I’m sorry O–I didn’t know she left those.”  He reached out and took the scrap of red fabric and threw them into the trash.  His last reminder of her, gone.  

Octavia was still watching him with soft, sad eyes, but he couldn’t stand her pity.  Not today, not when he was barely holding it together.  “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”  Octavia nodded.  “Was this why you wanted to have dinner tonight?” he asked, desperate to change the subject.

Octavia and Lincoln exchanged a look, and Lincoln sat down in a chair next to Octavia.  She curled her fingers around his and bit her lips.  “Um, no.  There’s something else.”  She took a shaky breath, and suddenly her face transformed. “I’m pregnant,” she said in a rush, like saying it faster would make it more true.

Lincoln smiled at Octavia and  Bellamy sat quietly for a moment.   _Pregnant_.  His baby sister was twenty four, married, and having a baby.  A little too late a smile broke across his face and he jumped up to hug her.  It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy for her–he was.  He was thrilled.  It was just that now he was standing at a crossroads and this was one more reminder of the life he would never have.  Octavia didn’t seem to notice his hesitation and accepted his hug eagerly, as did Lincoln.  They fell into their usual banter and after dinner he and Octavia moved out to the front porch while Lincoln handled the dishes.

They sat down on the porch swing together, momentarily silent.  He remembered the day Octavia and Lincoln moved into this house and he’d shown up with the swing and his toolbox, ready to fulfill an old promise.  _One day we’ll have a real house with a front porch and we’ll get a porch swing,_  he’d told her over and over again while they hid in his bedroom in whatever shitty apartment they were living in at the moment.   _And on warm summer nights we can just sit out there and no one will bother us._   It was a dream of a scared young boy and his equally terrified sister, but it was their dream nonetheless.

“Whatcha gonna do, Bell?” Octavia asked, pushing the swing with the tips of her toes.

“I don’t know,” he admitted honestly.  “And you’re going to be a mom.  How are you doing with that?”

Octavia chewed on her lower lip.  “Okay.  I mean, I’m happy.  I’m worried I might turn out like her, but Lincoln says I won’t.”

“You won’t,” he assured her.  “Mom–she had a lot of demons, but she loved us.  And you’re so strong O. I never thought my baby sister would turn out to be an FBI agent, but here you are.  Badass, and pregnant.  I’m proud of you.”

Octavia smiled and rested her head on his shoulder.  “Thanks, Bell.  And we’re here for you no matter what you decide.”

**

Bellamy sat down on the grass and cracked open his beer.  It had taken him two weeks to work up the courage, but he had to do this.  “Sorry it took so long, man,” he said to the hunk of granite that was all he had left of his best friend in the world.

_Nathan Miller_

_1987-2011_

_Son, Friend, Soldier_

He hadn’t been back here in three years, and the last time had sent him down a spiral of booze and bad decisions that only ended when Octavia dragged him back to church and told him to get his shit together.

“Things have been shitty lately,” he admitted.  “I joined the church, though.  Or almost.  I don’t know now.”

_Well, that clears it up_.  Even now he could hear Miller’s scoff and see his eye roll.

Bellamy leaned back against a tree.  “Two years ago, I decided to be a Jesuit and at the time, it seemed like the right thing.  It made sense.  I liked the structure.  I liked who I was with them.”

_I sense a “but” coming._

“Yeah.  I met a girl.”

_Celibacy never was your strong suit._

Bellamy snorted to himself.  “Yeah, I know.  But she’s–she’s different.  I could almost see a future with her.”

_So what’s the problem?  Go for it, man._

“I did.  And then–she left.  We spent the night together and I thought okay, maybe this is the future for me.  But then I woke up and she was gone.  Hasn’t spoken to me since.  And I’m supposed to take my vows in a few months, but I don’t know anymore.”

_Damn.  What now?_

“Now, I decide.  Stay, or leave because it never was going to work for me anyway.  Either way, I don’t think she’s in the picture anymore.  But maybe–I don’t know.  Maybe she was a sign.  That I’m not cut out for this.”

_You know what I’d say._

“Yeah.”  Bellamy drained the last of his beer and rested the other one on Miller’s grave.  “I do.”

**

“Pizza okay for dinner tonight?  I’m in court until five and traffic can be hell,” Wells said over his bowl of cereal.

“Yeah.  Give me a call when you’re leaving and I’ll order it so it will be here when you get home.”  Clarke poured herself a second cup of coffee that she nursed while Wells finished his breakfast and headed out the door.

She’d been here for five days, hiding.  She couldn’t face what she’d done so she ran, and the first place she thought of was Wells’ small condo in North Carolina.  She called him when she was on her way and to his credit, he didn’t ask her  _why_  she was coming for a week long unannounced visit.

In fact, he didn’t question her at all for the first two days.  He just let her sleep and cry and sketch, and the second day he brought home an easel and a few canvases for her.  That brought on a fresh round of tears that Wells sat patiently through, handing her tissues until she calmed down.

Later that night he poured her a glass of red wine while the pasta boiled on the stove.  “So are you going to tell me what brought this on?” he asked gently.  “I’m enjoying the company, but usually you give me more than a few hours heads up that you’re coming to stay.  And something is clearly wrong.”

Clarke swirled her wine glass and avoided Wells’ eyes.  “I screwed up.”

“So badly you had to leave town for a week?”

She nodded and took a shaky breath.  “I slept with Bellamy.”

“Bellamy,” Wells repeated blankly.  “You mean the priest?”

“He’s not a priest yet.  He’s taking his vows in a few months,” Clarke muttered.

“I thought splitting hairs was a lawyer’s job, not a doctor’s,” Wells said drily.

That brought a weak smile to Clarke’s face.  “Fair enough.  Still happened, though.”

“And he what, threw you out the next morning?  Told you he regretted it?  Asked you to say too many Hail Mary’s?”

“I wish,” she said softly.  “I–I left before he woke up.”

Wells nodded.  “Why?”

“Why?  Because I’m a terrible person and I couldn’t stand to see him realize that.”

“You’re not terrible, Clarke,” Wells said in that soothing voice of his.  “Why would you think that?”

Clarke laughed bitterly and gulped down the wine.  “Because I seduced a priest into breaking his goddamn vows.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t a priest yet,” Wells pointed out, earning himself an eyeroll from Clarke as she poured herself another glass of wine.

“I still knew what his lines were and I made him cross them.”

“You  _made_  him.  Meaning he told you to leave?  Or stop?”

“No.  But I put him in the position of having to choose.”

“Between you and the priesthood?”  Wells took a sip of wine and poured the pasta into the strainer.

“Yeah.”

“And he chose you.”

“It’s not that simple,” she protested, because her heart was threatening to crack again.

“I’m just saying–I don’t know what exactly happened between the two of you, but that’s the point.  There were  _two_  of you.  He was there too, Clarke.  You can’t take this all on yourself.”

“Watch me,” she replied sarcastically, helping him carry the plates to the table. “Besides,” she said while they started on their meal, “even if he didn’t hate me for making him choose, he’ll hate me for leaving.  I can’t undo that, Wells.  It was unforgivable.”

He shrugged.  “Maybe.  Maybe not.  I know better than to push you to do something before you’re ready, but you’ll never know unless you talk to him.”

“I can’t,” she said to her plate, and Wells squeezed her hand.

“I’ll drop it, then,” he said.

Wells kept his word and didn’t mention Bellamy for the rest of her visit.  She spent her days sketching and painting on his small balcony, consumed by a desire to create that she hadn’t felt in over a year.  When Finn died, she couldn’t bring herself to so much as sketch, but now it felt like the only way to exorcise her demons.  

All of them.

She painted Finn, the way she remembered him before the accident.  She painted her father, yelling at the Patriots from his favorite chair in their living room.  And she painted Bellamy–the way he looked running just ahead of her, his broad back glistening with sweat; the way he looked when he smiled; the way his forehead wrinkled when he frowned.

When Finn died, it was like a part of her died with him.  But now it felt like a dam had broken, unleashing a pent up well of creativity she didn’t know existed within her.  Wells came out to tell her the pizza was there and his forehead creased when he saw her latest painting (Bellamy’s hands tying his running shoes).  “These are good, you know,” he said.

“I know,” she sighed.

“Are they helping?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.  “Pizza?”

“Pizza,” Wells confirmed and she followed him back inside, leaving her guilt on the balcony for the night.

Eventually, Clarke had to go home.  Her vacation days were up and she had six straight night shifts to look forward to, which she somehow managed to navigate without crumpling. She did find herself pulling out her phone in the middle of long quiet stretches, wondering if he was having a nightmare.  Wondering if she could call him and apologize.

Wondering how much he hated her now.

But eventually she would slide her phone back into her pocket, untouched.  If he wanted to see her, he knew how to reach her.  The fact that he hadn’t told her everything she needed to know.

The week wore on, and one week turned into two, which turned into a month, and so on.  Monty seemed to know something was wrong but he didn’t push her and Clarke didn’t bring it up.  She found a new running route and settled into a new routine, one as devoid of reminders of Bellamy as possible.  The only time she let him back in was when Monty flipped through her sketchbook and asked who he was ( _an old friend_ , she lied) and when she glanced at the canvases she’d painted at Wells’ house, now stored in a corner of her guest bedroom facing the wall.  Those reminders of him cut like a knife through her ribs, but that pain was no more than she deserved.

The day Bellamy took his vows came and went, unacknowledged except in the deepest corner of her heart, where she said goodbye to him for good.

She still hadn’t forgiven herself, but she’d made peace with that.

She could bear it if it meant he didn’t have to.

 


	6. Chapter Six

“I swear to God, if Lincoln isn’t here in the next five minutes I will hunt him down and kill him myself,” Octavia grunted.

“He’s coming–I talked to him ten minutes ago, he’ll be here any minute.  It’s really coming down out there but he’ll get here, I promise,” Bellamy assured her.  Octavia panted her way through a contraction and squeezed his hand.   _Please let Lincoln get here soon_ , Bellamy prayed silently.  He’d seen Octavia through most of life’s milestones, but childbirth was not one he was ready to face.

“Drugs, Bell.  I need them,” she whined as the latest contraction eased.  Bellamy made eye contact with the nurse, who nodded and smiled.

“Dr. Green is on his way, he’ll get you set up with an epidural sweetie,” she told Octavia, and then Lincoln burst through the door, a little wet and disheveled–and more nervous than Bellamy had ever seen him–but none the worse for the wear.

Bellamy took the opportunity to duck out the door, but within half an hour he was pacing the tiny waiting area, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with himself for the next several hours.  A doctor a few years younger than him with shiny black hair walked past with a clipboard and stopped abruptly.

“Everything okay?” Bellamy barked.  The man had been in his sister’s room just moments before.  

“Sorry, you just–you look familiar,” the doctor said and walked away, shaking his head.

Six hours–six nerve wracking, endless hours–later, Bellamy crept back into Octavia’s hospital room where Lincoln and Octavia had been cuddled on the bed for the past hour, their son nestled between them.   “Hey,” he whispered, but they barely looked up.

“Hey Bell–meet Reese,” Octavia said, her eyes still trained on the tiny bundle in Lincoln’s arms.

Bellamy crouched over the bed.  Reese had thick dark hair and olive skin, just like Octavia, but his nose and mouth reminded him of Lincoln.  “He’s perfect.”

“Isn’t he?” Octavia cooed.  “Want to hold him?” she asked and Bellamy gingerly accepted the tiny baby in his hospital-issued blanket.

It was like holding O all over again.  He was tiny and helpless and completely, utterly perfect.  “How about I take him for a little walk and you guys get some sleep?” Bellamy offered, and Octavia smiled gratefully and leaned closer to Lincoln, her eyes already at half-mast.

It was dark outside and the sleet was still coming down as Bellamy and Reese walked up and down the halls.  Even with six months of preparation he still had a hard time wrapping his head around the idea of Octavia as a mother.  “I can’t believe you’re here,” he admitted to his nephew and took a seat in one of the small waiting room chairs.  “If you’re anything like O you’re going to be a handful, aren’t you?”  Reese’s dark eyes were open and Bellamy smiled.

Footsteps made him glance up and his heart sank into his stomach before he even realized what was happening.

“Bellamy?”  Clarke paused midstep in blue scrubs.  Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that he recognized from their runs and  _God he missed her_. Even after everything, he couldn’t help it.  There was no anger anymore, no resentment.

He just missed her so much it hurt.

Her eyes darted to Reese and then back to him.  “Octavia had a baby,” he clarified, a little amazed he could still speak in her presence.  Six months without her and the pain had barely dulled.  _Why did you leave? I would have given everything up.  For you_.

Clarke swallowed and for a moment it looked like she was about to leave.  “Why aren’t you wearing the collar? Or is that something you can choose to wear?” she asked finally and motioned to her throat.

Bellamy looked down at his nephew because looking at her was like a knife to his heart.  “I didn’t take my vows,” he admitted.

_“You’re sure?” Kane asked with a note of disapproval in his voice._

_“Absolutely sir.”_

_“No need to call me sir.  I’m not your CO.”  Kane rested his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers together.  “Is this because of your friend?  And your indiscretion with her?”_

_Bellamy snorted.  “Indiscretion?  That’s what we’re calling it?”_

_“What would you call it?”_

_“What it is.  I had sex with her.”_

_“Do you love her, or was it merely temptation?  That would make a difference.”_

_“I don’t know,” Bellamy admitted and hung his head._

_“One mistake does not mean you should abandon your calling,” Kane countered, stern and gentle at the same time._

_“I’m not sure it ever was my calling, Father.”_

Love, or temptation.  That question had haunted him for months and here she was, in front of him, and he still didn’t know.  Or rather, he suspected he did know, and that knowledge threatened to break him.

“Oh, Bellamy.”  Her words were a sigh escaping her lips, sad and sweet.

Bellamy shook his head and nudged the blanket away from Reese’s face.  “It was for more reasons than just you.”   _But I ignored them all until you._

Clarke perched on the chair next to him, poised to spring, to flee from him once again.  “I’m sorry,” she said, and the tears filling her blue eyes seemed sincere.  “I shouldn’t have left.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.”  He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.  _You changed everything and then you were gone, like it never even happened._

“I was scared,” she said, and Bellamy swallowed hard.  He risked a glance at her and saw her fingers twisting in her lap.

“So you ran away?”

“Pretty much.  It’s not an excuse, but…that’s what I do sometimes.  I shut down, or I run.”

“And I didn’t factor into your decision at all?” he asked, terrified that she would confirm his deepest fears.   _She left because she realized it was a mistake.  She never loved you the way you loved her._

“I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing you hurt and blaming me, because what I did was awful and unfair.  So I left, okay?  It was…it was the worst thing I could have done and I would do anything to take it back.”

“It wasn’t–it wasn’t because I was a mistake?”  His throat felt thick with unshed tears.

“Oh God, Bellamy, no.  Nothing like that.  I thought you would think  _I_  was a mistake, and I couldn’t forgive myself for making you choose, so I ran.  I didn’t think I could survive you changing your mind, and I knew you would.”

Her words sunk in.  _I didn’t think I could survive you changing your mind._

The doctor from earlier walked past and stopped uncertainly.  “Uh, Clarke?  Did you want…?”

“Go on down to the cafeteria without me, Monty.  I’ll be right there,” she said, barely taking her eyes from Bellamy.  His chest was tight and he broke her gaze because the pain in her eyes mirrored the pain he’d felt for the past six months.  _I didn’t think I could survive you changing your mind._

The doctor left, throwing concerned looks over his shoulder.  Bellamy stood and cleared his throat.  “I should get Reese back to his room,” he said.

Clarke’s face fell and Bellamy’s heart fell with it, because even with all of his pain he hated seeing her defeated.  “Okay, sure.  I’m glad–well, I’m glad you’re doing well,” she said bravely, even though Bellamy hadn’t told her anything of the sort.

Bellamy strode down the hallway, unable to bear looking back and seeing her again.  But he walked into the room and saw Octavia sleeping peacefully in Lincoln’s arms, squashed against him in the tiny hospital bed.  And he set down their son–their perfect, perfect son– in his bassinet, and he made up his mind.   _I want a family some day_ , he’d told Kane.  But really what he meant was _I want a life with her, but even if I can’t have that I can’t keep hiding.  I have to face life, with or without her._

A stairway door was just closing as Bellamy emerged back into the hall and he headed for it as quickly as he could.  He leaned over the metal railing and caught a glimpse of her blonde hair standing out against the industrial cement already two flights down.  “Clarke!” he called hoarsely and took the stairs two at a time, desperate to catch her.

He found her waiting for him on a landing, the tracks of recently shed tears glistening on her cheeks.  “I can’t let us end like that,” he blurted as he came to a stop on the step above her.

Clarke bit her lips and shook her head.  “I can’t–I can’t take back what I did,” she said shakily.

“You want forgiveness?  Then I forgive you.  It’s done,” he said, because maybe he wouldn’t be a priest, but the Catholic insistence on  _forgiveness_  was something that got him through his darkest hours.  If nothing else, he could give her that.

“What if I can’t forgive myself?”

Bellamy stepped down onto the landing and took her face in his hands, brushing away the remaining tears with his thumbs.  “Then I’ll forgive you for the both of us,” he whispered and pressed his lips to hers.

It was a chaste kiss, more reassurance than anything else.  But it was a promise–a pledge that there would be more moments like this.  “Let’s start over,” he breathed as he pulled back.  “You and me.  We’ll go on a date.  A real one.”

Clarke lifted her eyes to his and he thought he saw a glimmer of hope in them.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.  How about tonight?”

Clarke gave him a weak smile.  “I’m working until nine tonight.  Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.  Seven?  I have a car now; I can come pick you up.”

“Seven,” she confirmed and then she smiled, the first smile of hers he’d seen in half a year.  It lit up the dark, grim stairwell and he felt a spark of warmth in his heart he’d thought disappeared the morning he woke up to an empty bed.

He kissed her again then, but this wasn’t chaste–this was pure need combined with joy and relief and a hundred other emotions he couldn’t quite put his finger on–and Clarke melted into his arms.  Her lips chased his and the soft moan at the back of her throat told him everything he needed to know.  Reluctantly she pulled away but kept her hands where they rested on the small of his back.  “I have to go meet Monty and get back to work,” she said.

“Tomorrow, princess,” he promised her and let her go with one last kiss to her forehead.

**

Clarke groaned as the alarm went off and curled on her side.  “Too early,” she mumbled.

“It’s going to be too hot soon,” Bellamy replied and nuzzled her neck.  

“Mmmph,” was her eloquent reply.

Bellamy kissed her cheek and rolled out of bed like the infuriating morning person he was and Clarke dragged herself out after him.

Twenty minutes later they were standing in front of their house, stretching in the early morning sun.

“Your turn or mine?” he asked her as he straightened.

“Yours,” Clarke said with a grin. “My biceps are still sore from last time.”

Bellamy crouched down in front of the jogging stroller and smiled at their son.  “You ready, Jacob?”  

Jacob giggled and clapped his hands as the three of them set off on their morning run.

**Author's Note:**

> Things I know very little about: being a priest, a soldier, or an ER doctor. All mistakes are mine, but I couldn’t have done this without bleedtoloveher‘s emotional support. Title from Hozier’s Take Me To Church, obviously.


End file.
